Christmas on Primrose Hill

by Karen Swan

  The houseboat – half the length of anything else on the canal and more like a tug than a barge – was called Puffin. The crooked stove pipe was already puffing more than they were, the lights glowing orange behind the thin green curtains at the windows. Music – Primal Scream, Nettie guessed – was playing through the speakers loudly enough to make the water round the hull vibrate, and they could tell from the way the dried-up flowerpots had been stacked neatly by the back door that Jules had already arrived.

  ‘Hey!’ Em panted, opening the door and peering into the small cabin. Four faces grinned back – Dan, Stevie, Jules and Paddy. The homely aroma of chicken korma from a sachet wafted over them, poppadoms burning in the small oven like black toast. Dan was looking hassled, waving a tea towel round to disperse the smoke, as Stevie and Paddy sat at the table, setting up the cards.

  ‘Oh grim,’ Jules grimaced as Nettie followed in after her with a stagger, grateful to have stopped running at last, her cheeks pink and large patches of sweat darkening her clothes.

  ‘Oh, you don’t mean that!’ she retorted, arms outstretched and pretending to give her friend a bear hug.

  ‘Keep away!’ Jules laughed, holding up her cigarette as a defensive weapon. ‘You could have done us all the courtesy of having a shower before you rocked up here, you know.’

  ‘With what time?’ Em asked, immediately beginning her gentle-stretching cool-down routine. She looked annoyingly fresh from the forty-five-minute run, while Nettie, limbs trembling with fatigue, had to sink onto the bench to recover. ‘Dan was adamant we had to be here for seven p.m.,’ she said from a deep runner’s stretch.

  ‘I hardly think twenty minutes would have mattered, here or there,’ Jules said. ‘Look at you both. You’re going to stink.’

  ‘They can have a shower here if they want,’ Dan said. ‘I’ve got some clean towels.’

  ‘Clean?’ Em scoffed. ‘Yeah, right. I’ve seen your towels, Dan, and I know perfectly well you use them as bedding for the dog.’

  As if on cue, Scout jumped onto the bench, standing on Nettie’s lap and her tender muscles. ‘Ooow!’ she winced, trying to manoeuvre the dog into a better position. ‘Don’t you ever cut his nails, Dan?’

  Dan shrugged, handing her a hydrating beer with a wink and a smile, and inadvertently knocking a pile of Doritos to the floor. Scout jumped off Nettie’s lap – leaving her wincing all over again – and hoovered them up within seconds.

  ‘Well, so long as I don’t have to sit next to you,’ Jules said, taking another drag of her cigarette and blowing out the smoke through the corner of her mouth.

  ‘I’ve got a solution to Jules’s problem,’ Stevie said with a sly voice. ‘We could always make this a game of strip poker.’

  ‘Ha! Categorically no!’ Jules scoffed.

  ‘Why not, Jules?’ Paddy said teasingly. ‘You’re always cleaning up. What’s wrong? Feeling off your game? Not so sure you’re going to win tonight?’

  Jules stuck her tongue out at him and looked for something to throw, but Nettie knew – as any girl did – that the issue wasn’t so much one of skill and bluff as whether or not her friend had shaved/put on decent underwear/juiced this week (delete as appropriate).

  ‘Well, I’m up for it,’ Em shrugged, jumping up from a hamstring stretch in which she had almost bent double, and grabbing her beer off the tiny Formica worktop. ‘I’ve had a crap day. I need to blow off some steam.’

  ‘You’re telling me,’ Nettie grumbled from her now-prone position on the bench, knowing this was Em’s cue for everyone to ask after her job and trying to divert attention away from the subject. Out of the lot of them, Em’s was the one that carried true weight and significance. She parried with death every day, after all, and was never shy about recounting stories from her many, many years of further education. Stevie, on the other hand, had only two GCSEs, and Dan was more interested in the latest Arsenal result than his career.

  ‘Bet it doesn’t beat my day,’ Paddy said, idly shuffling a deck of cards. ‘I lost seventy-eight grand in three minutes this afternoon.’

  ‘How many times have I got to tell you, mate? You can’t be a broker without knowing how to count,’ Stevie quipped. Paddy kicked him in the shin under the table.

  ‘Yeah? Well, I had a water pipe blow in my face earlier,’ Dan said, bringing over some more Doritos. ‘Freezing, it was. Reckon I’ll get hypothermia.’

  ‘Tch. D’you feel another sickie coming on, then, Dan?’ Jules teased.

  ‘How about you, Nets?’ Stevie asked. ‘Any horror stories for you today?’

  Nettie pushed herself up to sitting and glanced at Stevie. He grinned as she met his eye, and she knew he knew exactly what she’d been up to today – having raised £17,600 by lunchtime, the clip had been filed and she was trending again – and there was no doubt dangling from the Shard, anything but graceful as she arched back in the bunny suit, was her definition of a horror story.

  ‘Me? No, it was quiet,’ she mumbled with a warning look in her eyes, feeling guilty that she still hadn’t let Em and Paddy – good friends though they were – into the secret. It wasn’t a copyright issue anymore and she knew she could trust them to keep quiet about it if she asked. But something still held her back.

  ‘Well, my day trumps all of yours,’ Em said determinedly, going to stand near the pot-bellied stove. If no one would ask, she would just jolly well tell. ‘I saved a pregnant woman’s life after she’d officially died three times on the table, and then spent the afternoon being hauled in and out of the HR offices because the husband is upset I couldn’t slash didn’t save the baby too, so now he wants to make an official complaint.’ Her face was white as she spoke, and for the first time Nettie saw the true cost of her friend’s perfectionism. Life and death, every day, every hour, every patient.

  Everyone fell silent, the gentle teasing buzz in the overcrowded cabin morphing into subdued sympathy for the unknown woman.

  ‘I mean, the mother was my patient. In a scenario like that, you always prioritize the mother. Always.’ She shook her head and took several deep swigs of her beer. Her hand was visibly shaking.

  Nettie felt bad that she’d bitterly anticipated Em’s news as just showing off. No wonder she had run tonight like she was chasing the wind, no wonder she needed to talk, drink, relax, play.

  ‘Yeah, OK then, you win,’ Stevie said finally, breaking the mood. ‘Your day officially sucked most. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to win this game. I hope you’re wearing lots of layers.’

  Em just shrugged.

  ‘We are not playing strip poker,’ Nettie said firmly, picking up where Jules had left off.

  ‘Em says we are. She won the Sucky Day Competition and she wants to play,’ Stevie countered.

  ‘What’s wrong, Nets?’ Dan grinned, his feet up on the table as he swigged his beer. ‘Can’t handle the heat?’

  ‘No! I mean, yes! I mean . . .’ she spluttered. ‘You know what I mean!’

  ‘You don’t have anything we haven’t seen before, do you?’ He paused, a mock-shock look crossing his face. ‘Oh no, wait, I always forget about your third nipple.’

  The boat rocked with laughter.

  ‘You are a pig!’ Nettie giggled, grabbing a tea towel and throwing it at him, but it unfurled in flight and lilted to the ground like a feather.

  Dan laughed harder. ‘Tell you what – we’ll give you a head start. You can layer up with some of my clothes.’

  ‘I’ll look ridiculous in your clothes. You’re a foot taller than me.’

  ‘Don’t worry, it’s not like you’re going to be in them for long,’ he laughed, getting up and disappearing into the private alcove area at the back of the boat.

  ‘I’m not doing it!’ she called after him, but he couldn’t hear her above the sound of wardrobe doors clattering open and closed, and Primal Scream’s banging bass beat.

  Chapter Eight

  The custard creams were out again, Mike pacing the conference room with a
fervour approaching frenzy as he clicked the remote from one chart to the next, all of them showing the dramatic surge in donations and website traffic.

  Nettie kept her eyes, as ever, on the rapidly staling biscuits, wishing someone would open the window. The room was airless and stuffy, dark pools of sweat were beginning to stain Mike’s cream shirt, and the plastic Christmas tree in the corner was doing nothing to put her in the festive spirit. In fact, even the impressive number at which her fundraising pot now stood – £64,000 and rapidly rising – couldn’t lift her mood.

  She was having a bad day, even though professionally her career was at an all-time high and personally she was still alive, which was really saying something given that she had survived the risk of hypothermia on Monday, the terror of #whaleing off the Shard yesterday, and the indignity of #planking on top of a red postbox in the middle of Belgrave Square this morning. Ordinarily she would have been able to pull off the pose in a moment, but being dressed in the giant bunny costume had meant she’d had to balance her convex stomach on the postbox’s equally convex top. It had been like stacking onions and she had been sure that a concussion, if not an arrest from one of the many foreign embassy guards, was going to be the most likely conclusion of that gag.

  ‘White Tiger are all over this like a rash,’ Mike was saying. ‘It syncs with their brand image perfectly, and they’re already even talking about carrying the Blue Bunny through on their advertising.’

  ‘That makes no sense,’ Caro said, twiddling her biro between her fingers. ‘We’ve said this before. Why would a company called White Tiger advertise with a blue bunny?’

  ‘Because the public has clearly engaged with the bunny, Caro,’ Mike said testily. ‘It doesn’t have to be literal. And they’re the client – let’s not forget that. If they’re happy, we’re happy.’

  Nettie wasn’t anywhere near as happy as she should have been. While the Internet was hailing Blue Bunny Girl as a new cult trend and she was the new golden girl of the office, there had been no further contact from Jamie Westlake since his donation on Monday – not a smiley face or wink, even; seemingly balancing bunnies on postboxes just weren’t funny to him – and she felt disproportionately despondent to have lost the attention of this person she had never met. She was sure Jules was now borderline OCD, checking almost hourly that the number of people Jamie followed remained at eighteen, and Nettie had a dread in the pit of her stomach that to engage him once again, Jules was going to have her do something out there, something crazy, stupid, nuts.

  Mike scratched his ear, irritated to have been knocked off his stride. ‘Where was I?’

  ‘Advertising,’ Daisy said, without looking up from her doodles on the sketchpad.

  ‘Right. Which is incredible news. We are influencing company image, which goes far, far beyond our normal scope and really says something about the success of this campaign.’ He pulled both hands into fists and jabbed them in the air. ‘So we need to keep it up, people. Donations to the charity – your pot, Nettie – are increasing by a hundred and seventy-four per cent day on day, and we’re fully expecting that to triple by the week’s end.’ He rubbed his hands together, clearly sensing another promotion in the air. ‘So where are we with tomorrow’s fun and games?’

  ‘I reckon “hashtag unicorning” would be funny,’ Daisy said.

  ‘And what’s that?’ Nettie asked warily but resignedly.

  ‘You just wear a unicorn’s head in a random place,’ Daisy shrugged.

  Nettie sighed. The things that people did for kicks! ‘Well, given that I’m already dressed as a bunny, a unicorn’s head might possibly be overkill?’

  ‘Oh yeah, good point.’

  ‘What about “hashtag sandbagging”?’ Caro offered up.

  ‘Never heard of it.’

  ‘You have to put your arms and feet up on something like, say, a bench and let your middle sag down like a sandbag. Like planking but . . . saggy.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d be able to keep myself up on anything. That costume’s heavy.’

  ‘Right.’ Caro slumped in her chair.

  ‘Cat-breading’s hilarious, but I don’t see how we could make it work for you,’ Jules said. ‘Your head’s too big in the bunny head.’

  ‘What even is that? Did you say “cat-breading”?’

  ‘Yeah. You punch a hole in a slice of bread and then put it round a cat’s head like a frame. It is bloody funny.’

  ‘Bloody funny,’ Caro echoed with a chuckle, nodding along.

  ‘What a shame it is that my head’s too big for that to work,’ Nettie said lightly, earning herself a swipe on the arm from Jules.

  ‘How about a photo bomb? That could be good if we get it to coincide with something high profile,’ Daisy said, straightening up. ‘Are there any big parties, any premieres happening this week?’

  ‘Ooh, that’s good, Daisy. I like it,’ Mike said.

  ‘Hang on a minute, hang on a minute,’ Caro said with quiet excitement as she tapped on her iPad. ‘If I’m right, then I think . . .’

  Nettie mentally assumed the brace position.

  ‘Yes, bingo! The new Bond’s out. It’s the world premiere in Leicester Square tomorrow night.’

  Everyone’s eyes brightened as they swivelled over to Nettie.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jules grinned. ‘This is going to be brilliant!’

  Getting in wasn’t a problem. There wasn’t a list in London Daisy couldn’t get past, thanks to her five-foot-long legs and an expensive education in Bucks that meant she had a network of influential contacts she leveraged for everything from finding a plumber to borrowing a friend’s father’s car in the South of France during Cannes week.

  In this instance, she had gone to university with the girlfriend of the brother of the girl, Mimsy, who now worked in the marketing division for Eon Productions (the company that made the Bond films), and in return for getting her and the girls in to the premiere, Daisy had promised to get her VIP Veranda tickets for La Folie Douce in Val d’Isère in March. Jules called it ‘silver-spoon swapsies’.

  They had deliberately arrived early. Not early enough to beat the eight-deep crowd of fans standing behind the barricades who had been camping out since the day before last, but early enough that the paparazzi were still checking their equipment as Nettie, Jules, Daisy and Caro quickly marched down the red carpet and into the foyer of the Odeon cinema, where last-minute tweaks were still being made in readiness for the stars’ arrival. It had been agreed – by a vote of their four to his one – that Mike shouldn’t attend. His presence, as a lone middle-aged male in a group of young, attractive twenty-something women, they had argued, would only bring attention to them all, and that was the last thing Nettie needed. The bigger her following was becoming, the more she wanted to hide. Accordingly, she was dressed like a shadow in black leggings, a black skinny jumper and ballet pumps, while the rest of the girls were dressed up to the nines. Daisy, who looked like a Bond Girl in a strapless silver lamé dress, had tried cheering her up by saying that she looked like Audrey Hepburn, but Nettie knew Ms Hepburn had never worried about wobbly bits or VPL or blue-tinged feet on a perishing December night.

  Inside the cinema, anticipation put a crackle in the air, everyone’s eyes fixed to the huge glass doors as the clamour of the crowds grew.

  Nettie stood by the far wall with a deepening depression (having been asked on more than one occasion where the toilets were) looking back at the scene outside. An enormous Christmas tree twinkled in the dusk in the middle of the square, outshone by the bright lights of the premiere parties. Teenage girls in furry-lined parkas and beanies were stamping their feet and blowing on their fingers, pressing against the red corded ropes and gathered in small groups, laughing with high-pitched voices and pink cheeks, their excitement visibly growing as the minutes ticked past. The photographers had arranged themselves in an orderly bank just outside the doors, allowing them to get plenty of shots of the stars stopping to chat, sign autographs and take
selfies with the fans, before pausing for the clean ‘static’ shots just in front of them. Someone was hoovering the carpet so that not a footprint or a leaf marred the scarlet perfection.

  Nettie couldn’t take her eyes off the security teams, who were already in place too, tank-sized chests puffed as they checked their relays. She swallowed nervously. Little did they know what they were going to be contending with tonight. Her.

  Jules came back with the drinks. ‘Here. Down that. You look like you could do with it.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Vodka tonic. We need something fast-acting to get you to loosen up.’

  ‘Right.’ Nettie took a large gulp. It burned her throat and made her eyes water. ‘Wow, that’s strong. Blimey, that actually gave me a flashback to uni!’ She wiped her eyes. ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Caro’s double-checking the car’s parked round the corner. Daisy’s at the back door with a face like thunder. She’s having to chat up the porter while she waits for the courier to deliver the suit.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Nettie couldn’t muster any sympathy. It was herself she felt most sorry for tonight. She bit her lip, looking back out into the square again, her eyes on the faces in the crowd. ‘Hey, do you think we’ll get to see Judi Dench?’

  ‘Hon, we’re not going to see anyone. You’ve got to pick a target, do what you gotta do and get out of there. No time to schmooze or hobnob with the stars tonight, I’m afraid. Besides, her character died in the last one,’ Jules added, putting down her sequinned Anya Hindmarch clutch to fiddle with the skirt of her black dress, which was fractionally too tight and looked all the better for it. Jules had an athletic, naturally slim figure but with a hint of ripeness on the breasts, thighs and arms that always managed to make her clothes looks a size too small. Men loved it.